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O-hmmm t1_isageo1 wrote

I find it disturbing to see how much food is thrown away as any dumpster diver could attest to. How to distribute it safely is an economic and logistic problem that is tough to solve.

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T33CH33R t1_isamoqe wrote

It's only a problem because many believe that food security isn't a right, but that maximizing profit is.

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rooftopfilth t1_iscf3oo wrote

Also, Good Samaritan laws are a thing! People defend big companies on the grounds that “they’ll get sued if the food is bad” but there are laws preventing that.

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T33CH33R t1_isclumr wrote

You are right, unfortunately, companies that profit from tossing food will pretend that their hands are tied.

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Eric1491625 t1_ise3e6l wrote

Problem is that Good Samaritan laws don't protect all the time. Gross negligence is still grounds for a lawsuit, and expecting minimum wage employees to exercise dutiful care and not be negligent is still a big risk to businesses.

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amborg t1_isajylj wrote

I used to work at a distribution center unloading trucks for Meijer (large grocery store). If any of the packages were damaged at ALL, they were to be documented and thrown away. So. Much. Food. Other goods, too.

One day we had a large order of diapers. The packages were damaged, but the diapers were fine. It was like, 100 diapers. I overheard my coworker saying that his wife had just had a baby and they could really use those, but he didn’t want to risk being fired.

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zensins t1_isaic89 wrote

Good luck with that.

.

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silence7 OP t1_isamwit wrote

The problem for Republican politicians is that if you give poor people a reason to vote, they won't support having all their money transfered into the pockets of the wealthy patrons who back the Republican party

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p-d-ball t1_isdlpl1 wrote

Damn those politicians who stymied you.

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BilkySup t1_isb6jtt wrote

I work in the Produce industry. The amount of pointless waste is disgusting. We have major grocery store chains throw out entire truck loads of produce because bags are not labeled correctly or the wrong size sent. They won't let you resell the product or a lot of times they won't let it even get sent to food banks (even though we send it there anyway) because they don't want their private label "hitting the street".

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DiggerGuy68 t1_isc244i wrote

"Hitting the street"

Might as well not beat around the bush and say "out of poor people's hands, because fuck the poor"

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MetricOutlaw t1_isbr07r wrote

Not uplifting at all.

The greatest flaw of capitalism is that we an excess of food and shelter that is thrown away or unused while people go hungry and homeless.

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Kagahami t1_iscfc5j wrote

The issue has, since the agricultural revolution, become an issue of distribution, not production. We could easily feed the world twice over at current production. Getting the food from farm to plate is the hard part.

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silence7 OP t1_iscft7c wrote

In terms of climate, when food is grown, but then wasted, you've also burned fossil fuels to make fertilizer and transport the food, as well as possibly emitted methane during the growing of the food and its decomposition in a landfill. So waste reduction can have some real knock-on benefits in addition to feeding people, and be a part of how we lower overall emissions

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llama_ t1_isbr2lt wrote

Best before dates are stupid.

That’s all I have to offer.

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GRANITO t1_isbthaj wrote

ctrl+f subsidy, subsidized, no hits. If you want to get rid of food waste the west is going to have to stop subsidizing their farmers so farmers in the developing world are competitive and the food can be grown and distributed closer to where it is consumed. "Entrepreneurs" aren't looking to solve the problem, they're looking to make a buck. That's how capitalism works

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nunya1111 t1_isclfrl wrote

Nope. They are beholden to the big companies causing the hunger and climate change. It's industries causing the latter, and they are not paying living wages. Lawmakers only write laws that benefit them, and these big companies will stall any attempts at laws that could hurt their bottom lines.

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Cyberfury t1_isc2nat wrote

Keeping that food out of the dumpsters is just going to starve more homeless people to death.

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